


Pulling at Fragments

by sheafrotherdon



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-21
Updated: 2011-04-21
Packaged: 2017-10-18 11:07:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,755
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/188293
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sheafrotherdon/pseuds/sheafrotherdon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This story explores the after-effects of sexual assault and may be triggering for survivors.</p><p>I wrote this as wish-fulfillment – I would have loved to have had a Danny Williams to call when this happened to me. It was comfort to write it; I hope that maybe it's comfort for others who need it too. With grateful thanks, as ever, to dogeared for all her advice.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pulling at Fragments

It's after 11 when the phone rings. Danny's half-way to bed, toothbrush in his mouth, pants hung over the back of a chair, wandering his place in an undershirt and boxers. He curses the criminal element on Oahu, thinks of six or seven means of revenge he'll have on whomever's decided he doesn't need sleep, picks up his phone and crooks an eyebrow when he sees Kono's face on the read. He'd expected McGarrett.

"Rookie?" he says.

"Danny." She sounds shaken, unsure of herself. "I need help."

He throws his toothbrush in the sink, grabs a pair of jeans while he talks to her, and he's out of the door with his gun and his badge without really thinking too clearly, drives as fast as he can.

\-----

The beach is deserted; there's no other car anywhere Danny can see. Kono's sitting on the steps to one of the surf shacks, arms wrapped around herself, wind-beaten, weather-worn treads supporting her weight. She glances at Danny as he jogs toward her, looks away, hunches a little further into herself. Danny slows his pace, stops a couple of steps away from her and crouches, doesn't touch. "What happened?" he asks.

Kono tries to smile, but it's watery, pained. "I was with . . . you haven't met him. Eric Carlin. New guy." She clenches her jaw. Danny can see her shivering; it isn't cold.

"Okay," he says, suddenly and sickeningly sure where this is headed.

"We were fooling around. We were in bed." She wets her lips and blows out a breath, tilts her face so that the ocean breeze blows her hair out of her eyes. "I thought we were . . . " Kono pauses, lips a thin line as she presses them together. "I wasn't ready. He just. . . I said no, and he . . ."

Danny feels his guts twist.

"He said thought I wasn't serious or something, he stopped eventually, I left everything there, just grabbed my phone. I left my sweater, Danny, I left . . ."

"Hey, hey," he says, voice pitched low, soothing. "It's okay. We'll fix that. It doesn't matter right now." Kono nods, tight, head jerking. Danny badly wants to reach out and hug her stupid, but he knows he can't, knows that isn't what she needs. "What do you want to do?"

"Do?" She asks, looking at him, confused.

He's done this before, walked someone through their choices, but this is different, this is someone he knows. It feels like the first time all over again. "You wanna go to the hospital?"

Kono shakes her head, looks startled, like she'll bolt any second. "I can't."

"That's okay – hey, that's okay," he says again, a hand out as if he can calm her just by gesture. "You don't have to do anything you don't want to."

"But I should, right?" Her voice is thick with tears, and her eyes are bright. "I'm a cop, I'm supposed to – I should do it so that he doesn't . . ."

"You," Danny says, "don't have to think about anything beyond what feels right. I swear to god." He kneels down. "There is no 'should', you hear me? No judgment." He holds he gaze, nods just a little, wills that to get through. "Just . . . are you hurt?"

She bites her lip, shakes her head. "I don't need . . ."

"You sure?"

She nods.

"Okay. Okay." He lets his hand drop to his thigh.

Kono dashes the back of her hand across her cheek. "Auntie works at the hospital. And if they call HPD, everyone will know, everyone, and I can't – "

"Hey, hey," Danny says, gentle, quiet. "Seriously. It's okay. You don't have to go anywhere."

She laughs mirthlessly. "II can't sit here forever."

Danny nods in agreement. "Be pretty nice, though, huh? The view. The sun." He looks up at the stars. "When it shows."

"God, it's so late," Kono says apologetically. "I’m sorry – you must've been – "

"Oh, no," he says firmly. "Stop right there. You think there's anywhere I'd rather be right now? You think anything matters more, this second, than you?"

Kono's face crumples. "I feel so stupid," she whispers.

"It's not your fault," Danny says, and he holds out one hand – she can take it or not, whichever feels best. "I promise you, one hundred percent, this was not your fault."

She squeezes herself even more tightly. "But I . . . "

"Not your fault," Danny repeats, unhurried, steady.

Kono wipes her face, and fumbles her damp hand into his, grips his fingers hard.

"We'll go someplace safe," he says. "What'd feel good?"

"HQ," she says, without a moment's hesitation.

\------

Danny has to admit, as safe places go, the HQ's pretty good. It lacks some amenities – a bed for sleeping, for example – but there are locks and guns and it smells familiar. He follows Kono's lead, lets her choose where she wants to hunker down, feels strangely touched when she picks his office, sits heavily on his couch in the almost-dark.

"I'm gonna get a couple of things, okay? I'll be right here, I can hear you if you shout, yeah?"

Kono nods miserably, pulls her feet up on his couch and wraps her arms around her legs. Danny doesn't let an ounce of what he's feeling show, the murderous urges he feels toward Eric fucking Carlin – turning this into some testosterone shit storm helps no one, and he knows that, he's been through two, three trainings by now, a dozen cases. He's human – he'd like to introduce Carlin's face to his fist – but he stows that where his other stupid impulses go, like the inclination to knock a suspect's head into the wall, to fabricate evidence just this one little time, to tell Rachel Stan's a shithead, those kind of things.

There are pillows, two of them, and a blanket in the storeroom. They come in handy at the oddest times, for witnesses and loved ones and Danny's knee. He hauls them back to his office, throws the pillows on the couch, sets the blanket on top of them. Kono barely moves.

"Hey," Danny says, crouching in front of her. "In case you're tired, right?"

"I'm exhausted," she says, watching him through the fall of her hair, chin on her knees. "But I don't think I can . . . " She lets the sentence die, shakes her head.

"Understandable." Danny rubs at his chin to give his hands someplace to be. "You eat?"

"Ugh." She closes her eyes for a second. "That . . . would be a bad idea."

"Tell you what. I'm gonna go down the hall, see what the vending machines have to offer. I'll bring it back, we'll stick it here," he gestures at the desk, "and you can eat something, or not, whatever. Me, I got a hankering for Sun Chips, but not everyone has my discriminating sense of taste."

Kono smiles ruefully. "Okay."

"Okay." Danny flashes her a grin, does as he says, brings back chips and granola bars, Snickers, water, a can of Coke. Kono's wrapped the blanket around herself by the time he gets back, and he figures that's good, that's tactile, that's comfort.

"You get first pick," he offers, "but I'm just saying, I'm pretty sure this Snickers has my name on it."

Kono huffs a breath of laughter, takes the water he offers, sips it as he tears into the candy. He's ravenous – it's after midnight, and he'd like to sleep for about a hundred years. That's not an option, so he'll take the chocolate, the caramel, the peanut deliciousness, hop himself up on caffeine if he needs to, he's no slouch at staying awake.

"I'm not . . . " Kono eases herself to lean against the arm of his couch, feet up on the seat. "I'm not wrong, right?" She worries the edge of the label on her water bottle, peels it little by little with one fingernail.

"About what?" Danny asks.

Kono hitches a shoulder. "I agreed to . . . I wasn't in his bed because he forced me there, I – "

Danny lets her finish, lets her words run dry. "You get to say no," he says softly. "Always. Whenever." He leans forward. "You get to say _yes_ ," he adds. "You didn't agree to this, you didn't."

"Okay." Kono nods, movements minimal, tight. "I just – some people will probably say." Her lips twist. "Different."

"Some people are jerks," Danny offers, tamping down his frustration with the nameless faceless people in his imagination that he'd already like to take to task. "So fuck them."

Kono sips her water, nods. "Okay."

"Seriously, fuck them."

She looks at him, one corner of her mouth twitching. "I get it."

"Fuck them, fuck them, fuck them," Danny continues.

"Jesus, enough," she says, actually smiling, a real smile, and it does Danny's heart good to see it. She screws the cap back on her bottle, sets it on the floor and slides down so that her head's supported. "Will you stay?"

Danny narrowly avoids telling her that's the dumbest question he's ever heard. "Yeah," he manages instead, and watches her as she turns her face toward the back of his couch, closes her eyes, hugs the blanket tight around her.

\-----

Danny dozes off in his office chair, and when he wakes, Kono's staring at the ceiling – she's quiet, but her face is wet with tears. Danny makes a show of yawning to give her time to gather her wits, scrubs at his face, taps his phone to see the time – 3.41am. "You okay?" he asks eventually.

Kono shakes her head.

Danny waits for her to decide what she needs to say, if she needs to say anything at all, notices a granola bar wrapper on the floor, an empty bottle of water. That's good – he's glad she ate something, drank something.

"In the morning," she says at last, and then covers her face with both hands, leaves them there for a long, long moment. He can see the pale points of pressure at her knuckles as she pushes her hands against her face. "Will you tell them?"

It's early – late, something – so it takes a second for Danny to catch on. "Chin. Steve."

Kono pulls her hands away, wipes her nose against her knuckles. "I can handle their questions. I'm pretty sure I can handle that." She stares at her hands, worrying her fingers together. "But I think about – I try to imagine saying . . . " Her lip quivers and she shakes her head, brings her hands up to her face again.

Danny thinks his heart might actually be breaking. "I'll tell 'em."

"I know it's not yours to – I _know_ I should be the one to . . ."

"Kono." Danny doesn't know how to get this across save injecting every ounce of feeling he can into his words. "Hear me out, okay? Just – there's no right or wrong, all right? The only rule is you get to decide. You get to choose."

She nods, wipes her face again, twists her fingers in the blanket. "I can handle their questions," she repeats.

"I know you can."

"But seeing their faces when . . . I don't think I can do that."

It hits Danny all over again what it means that she called him, that she trusted him with this. He knows it's complicated – Chin's family; Steve's going to want to kill this Eric douche; Danny's actually the one least likely to lose his mind and isn't that a novel twist – but there's something humbling about being in her confidence, about being able to help her mop up the mess. "I'll tell them."

"Okay." She rests an elbow against the back of a couch, tugs at her bottom lip as she looks out the windows that make up his office walls.

Danny watches her quietly, wishing he could magically make things right, knowing he can't, that trying would be about him, not her. He flicks at the Snickers wrapped on his desk. "I got an idea," he says, and waits for her to glance over. "You still have a spare shirt in your office, right?"

She nods.

"How'd you feel about cleaning up a little – changing, maybe, if that'd feel good."

Kono frowns a little, but it isn't refusal, just thoughtfulness, he can tell the difference this many months in. "Yeah. Good idea." She slowly swings her legs off the couch, sets the heels of her hands on the seat cushions, the blanket loose around her shoulders.

"I can come with, I can stay here . . . "

"Stay," she says, and he can see her pulling at the fragments of her old self, stitching together constancy. "I won't be long. And you should get some sleep."

"Couch is yours, rookie. I'm not even arguing this one."

She half-smiles at him. "So pull in another chair, something. Your knee's gonna hate you."

"You my PT now?"

"You have a PT?"

Danny tries not to look shifty, figures he probably fails. "I got one. I just don't necessarily – look, when exactly should I make the appointments, huh? 10.30 Wednesdays isn't usually free, what with the traffickers and drug lords and general scum."

She cocks an eyebrow at him, amused.

"Okay, sure, maybe I could find someone who's a little more – hell, I bet HPD has people who – what am I even, why are you still here? Go change your shirt."

Kono pushes herself up. "You did that all on your own," she points out.

"Yeah, well – screw you, Kalakaua. With your – " he waves a hand. "Impressive powers of something."

She grins at him, gives him a one-handed gun salute, heads off to find her shirt, and Danny huffs fondly in her wake.

\-----

When she comes back there's a sheen of pink on her face, on her arms, like she's scrubbed herself as best she can, tried to erase the ghost of someone else's touch. Danny smiles at her, head tipped back against his desk chair, legs propped up, one of the pillows under his knee. "Figured you were right," he says, gesturing at his leg. "Let it never be said I can't admit my wrongs."

Kono takes the other pillow, squishes and punches it into the shape she wants, curls up on his couch and pulls the blanket over herself. "I was thinking about surfing," she says.

Danny blinks at the non sequitur. "Like . . . you wanna go right now?"

She shakes her head. "Just in general. It feels good."

"Huh." Danny has nothing useful to offer on the subject of surfing. He's getting better – he can stand on his board for ten, twenty seconds now, and he's learning not to get pissed off every time he falls – but it's nothing close to natural for him.

"We invented it, you know," Kono offers.

"Surfing?"

"Yeah."

"Your family?"

She laughs softly. "Hawaiians."

Danny nods slowly, taking that in. "I did not know that." He frowns a little. "How did I not know that?"

"We don't like to brag, brah." She smiles at him. "Great image, though, huh? Haole missionaries show up and it's a good day for waves, find us at the beach, surfing naked."

Danny snorts softly, grinning. "I gotta be honest, if I went to the beach right now and saw a bunch of people surfing naked, I'd – there would be goggling. Goggling and maybe some wincing, a little ouch-face, I'm just saying, that's gotta sting."

"Naw," Kono says around a yawn. "It's good."

Danny mulls this over. "When it's light, we could go. I mean – you could go, I'd sit and watch. I'm a very accomplished watcher of people who surf."

Kono rubs her face against the pillow – her eyelids look heavy. "It'd feel good. My body and ocean and . . . feel right."

Of course, Danny thinks; someplace where her body's hers again, where it's doing the things that she wants it to do. "We'll go," he murmurs.

Kono's already asleep.

\-----

Danny wakes because he's conditioned by now – months of being Steve's partner mean he's developed some sort of spider-sense for Steve primed to deploy his arsenal of skills in uncomfortable and perhaps ill-advised ways, and sure enough when he opens his eyes, scrubs the grit from them, Steve's standing outside his office, arms folded, a mutinous expression on his face.

It's barely light out – god only knows what time it is, but he's damned if he's waking Kono. Danny eases himself sitting, then standing – rounds the desk and slowly opens the door, eases outside and heads toward Steve's office, gesturing for Steve to follow. He does.

"What happened?" Steve asks the minute his office door swings closed behind them.

He's an open book – his face showing anger, concern, the usual confusion. Danny sighs, feels irritated affection that Steve knows something's wrong, pinches the bridge of his nose and takes a second to figure out what to say. "She, uh – the guy she was dating. He . . ." Danny shakes his head, looks Steve in the face. "She was raped."

Steve looks murderous – eyes a little wild, hands balled into fists. "Who is he?"

"Okay, no, you don't get to do that, you don't."

"Danny – "

"You don't think I understand?" Danny hisses. "You don't think I have a list as long as my arm of the things I'd like to do to this asshole?"

"He doesn't . . . you don't . . ." Steve starts pacing, runs his hands through his hair. "What sort of guy – " He tips back his head, looks up at the ceiling, breathing hard.

"Hey, I'm in complete agreement, all right? In general, the guy's a scum-sucking dirtbag, and he hurt family, that's like – stupid squared, asshole to infinity, I want to punch him in the _dick_ and that's just the pre-show."

Steve blows out a breath, and Danny can see him doing that military thing where he pulls himself back from the chaotic places in his head, sorting and organizing and thinking himself still. "How is she?"

"About how you'd expect." Danny perches on the edge of Steve's desk, rubs the back of his neck where a headache's building. "She's tough as nails, she's going to beat this thing into the ground, but she's . . ." He swallows, knocked off kilter by articulating it, because in all this there hasn't been more than a minute to just think about how fucking heartbreaking this is, how much he hates this for her. "She doesn't feel safe. She's second-guessing herself, worried she's making a big deal out of nothing, terrified about what people are going to think."

"They're not going to think anything."

Danny offers him a rueful smile. "I love the crazy protective look on you, babe, but people are gonna say stupid shit, and you cannot personally beat them all down."

Steve's eyes glitter; god only knows the revenge scenarios he's running though, but he doesn't say anything.

"And you gotta let her be in charge of this," Danny says softly. "Someone already – you . . . _we_ gotta let her decide everything. We can't just charge in, try and save her, you get that? Cause that's not saving her, that's just fucking shit up even worse."

Steve turns around and flops on his couch, elbows on his knees, hands at the back of his neck. "You're right." He pulls in a breath, lets it out, pulls in another. "Okay. Okay. So – " He looks up at Danny. "What _can_ we do?"

"Go fetch some food," Danny says. "I am fucking starving."

Steve laughs, shakes his head. "What the hell."

"No, seriously, it's been like, candy since 11, and I would kill, _kill_ for meat right now. Bacon. Eggs. Enormous sandwiches dripping with – I don't even know, just . . . bring me some meat, get the stuff she likes, something she can stomach if she wakes up feeling sick again."

Steve's face contorts for a second, then he stuffs it all away, nods and stands up. "She likes those – fruit things."

"And bacon. She likes bacon. We all like bacon."

Steve rolls his eyes. "You're calling someone later."

Danny tries to find the segue, but there isn't one. "I'm . . . what now?"

"You've been here all night, it's Kono, I know what this does, okay? You gotta talk to someone."

Danny's mouth falls open a little, the cogs in his brain sluggish, not catching where they should. But it's not a bad idea, it's a good one, it's sound, it's kind of sweet all things told, and he ducks his head, nods once, sharply. "Unlike you, McGarrett, I understand the value of regular head-shrinking, so I'll . . . call my guy."

"Good." Steve watches him for a moment. "Good."

"Go on, get out of here," Danny says, uncomfortable, feeling a little too obvious, a little too raw. "Bring me bacon."

Steve pulls a face – amused, side of put-upon – says, "Going, going," and he squeezes Danny's shoulder before he goes.

\-----

Chin arrives while Steve's gone and Danny does the whole thing again, the two of them sitting side-by-side on Steve's couch, Chin looking gut-punched when he hears.

"She's gonna be okay," Danny offers.

Chin rubs his forehead. "Yeah. She's . . ." He doesn't finish, and he doesn't need to. "She's okay with me knowing?"

"Of course she is. She asked me to tell you guys, but that's just because . . ." He gestures helplessly with one hand. "Those words have gotta be brutal, you know?"

Chin nods. "Maybe I can wait in there. Be there when she wakes up."

"That's a great idea." Danny claps him on the knee, stands a second or two after Chin does, looks over toward the bullpen when he sees Chin doing the same. Kono's standing there, watching the two of them, biting her bottom lip, and before Danny can say anything, do anything, Chin's pulling open the office door, headed toward her, and she meets him half-way, throws her arms around him, holds on as if for dear life. Danny stays in Steve's office, figures whatever Chin's saying is meant for just the two of them, and besides, he knows Steve has Bejeweled on his computer, he can work on beating the maniac's high score. He plays – six games, doesn't even get on the leader board – one eye on the bullpen, doesn't stand up and walk in there until he sees they're sitting down, that Chin has Kono's hand in his but she doesn't look like she's ready to break or vomit or something. "Hey," he offers, feeling awkward. "You okay? Both of you?"

"Yeah," Kono says, and she looks like she's been crying, her smile's weak, but she got some sleep, she looks better for that. "We're gonna – pretty soon here, soon as I can . . ." She tucks her hair behind one ear, restless, jittery. "Chin'll go with me to tell my mom."

Danny pulls out another chair at the computer table. "Course," he says. "And – I don't know if this is good, if this sounds like something you want, but I sent McGarrett . . ."

"Food," says Steve, walking in from the hallway, two large plastic bags stuffed with random objects held in each hand. He looks a little embarrassed. "I couldn't decide."

Kono blinks, eyes bright, creases between her brows, but she looks grateful. "Bacon in there?"

Steve grins. "I got so much bacon, you wouldn't believe."

\-----

They eat, and it's a little weird, the glances Chin's throwing Danny and Steve, the glances they're throwing back. But there's conversation, and Steve looks up the wave forecast on his phone, leans over to show Kono and she doesn't pull away. Danny can see her shoulders firming, the brittle but meaningful set of her jaw – it's going to stay hard, this stupid, unfair, painful process, but she's finding the quiet places between the anger and the grief and the doubt. She tears up when Chin asks where her car is, but she laughs when Steve offers up some absurd story about Annapolis and a cat up a tree, really appreciates the demerits he earned for the hole in his pants. When she lapses into silence, slumped in her chair, exhausted for every one of them to see, Danny's glad for it – glad she's not putting on a brave face around them, just trusting she can be tired and worn down around them and it'll be okay. Given everything that's happened she'd be more than owed all the fences and walls she wanted to throw up against them, and he's humbled to his core that she's miserable right where they can see her, that she smiles and pushes her plate away and decides, okay, it's time to go home.

They stand up, all of them. It's awkward, and Danny brushes his hands on his pants, chews on his bottom lip for want of knowing what else to do.

Steve stuffs his own hands in his pockets, starts to say something, stops, tries again. "You know you can . . . You know you have all the time you need, right?" he asks.

She smiles at him weakly. "Yeah, boss."

Steve shakes his head. "And – don't . . . there's no should or judgment or right or wrong or anything, okay? Just, if you want to be here, be here, and if you want to be someplace else, be someplace else, and . . ." He shrugs a shoulder.

Kono takes a step toward him, wraps her hand around his forearm and squeezes, nods, steps back again before Steve can react. "I will."

"We'll go surfing later, rookie," Danny says.

Kono ducks her head, wipes a hand under her nose, crosses the room toward him and hugs him hard. Danny lets his hands come up to her back slowly, gently, squeezes her when she doesn't pull away.

"Thank you," Kono mumbles.

"Hey, what? Anyone would've – it's no big deal."

Kono pulls back and shakes her head; he can see the tears welling up again, and every molecule in his body wants to stop her having to cry but he bites it back, bites it back. "Not anyone," she says. "Not everyone."

And he realizes she's right – god, he's such a dumb fuck. There's him, okay, and there's Chin, and there's Steve, but there's Eric fucking Carlin and every guy like him, and she's right, she sees it clearer than he does, and she's probably had to think like that for most of her life. "Yeah," he admits, struck by the stuff she carries – that Rachel knows, that Grace will have to learn, and fuck, he hates that idea, hates it so much – because she's a woman, because Eric fucking Carlins are not as rare as they should be.

"I'll talk to you later, both of you," Kono says, heads over to Chin, lets him shepherd her out of HQ with his hand at her back.

"What now?" Danny asks Steve, capacity for forward thinking used up completely.

"Sleep," Steve says. "Come on. I'll drive you home."

\-----

They don't make it to the beach for another three weeks, the days eaten up by worry, by coping, by Kono's visits to a shrink she knows, back from when she blew out her knee. Danny wishes they knew how to avoid walking on eggshells – they all do it, time to time; fall into the habit of wanting to spare her – but Kono curses them out more than once, and even threatens to punch them if they don't shape up. Her moods are uneven, her energy low, and mornings seem to be the roughest – she looks like shit until past 10am – but she's with them on cases, working, determined, and Danny knows what it is to need the comfort of the job.

They hit the North Shore on a Monday morning, barely 6am, the wind just right. Danny defers to the occasion, wears cut-offs and a worn, old t-shirt, clutches a mug of coffee and a bag of malasadas like they're lifelines as he trails her to the beach. He doesn't bring a towel, just plants his ass in the sand – it'll get where it shouldn't no matter what he does, so he's given up fighting for some element of control – folds Kono's t-shirt and shorts because it's a habit now, picking up other people's clothes, some Gracie's, some not. The coffee's hot, the sun warm; he steeples his knees, watches the waves.

She's beautiful out there, lithe and strong, leaning her body into the curve of the swell. The waves are fickle; Kono wipes out more than once, but she smiles when she pops back up again, gets on her board and paddles back out. She looks graceful, free, in her element, and Danny roots for her while she fights the current, stretches and soars and lives in the body that's hers, just hers, cheers her on no matter whether she hears him, and she keeps on standing, every time.


End file.
